IN MY HANDS
By Phantwo J Fou

Notes: Thank you, Kota Magic, for your kind review. . . . And if anyone else is reading this, read her fanfic 'Still Just a Little Boy'! It's so much like this one, only better! So should I just pull my head back into my little shell, pack up from the Zelda section and head back to Phantom of the Opera? You reviewers decide....

I find this fic rather easy to write because I hate the Shadow Temple! Thank God it's so short! Anyway, recall that I do accept all reviews, good and bad alike, so if you need to tell me anything, go ahead in a review! I'm open to criticism! I'm open to compliments! I'm open to anything, as long as it's a review!

Chapter Two
Life of a Statue

I stood up wearily and cast a glance into the room ahead. How much time had passed, I wondered vaguely, since I had paused here? How much time did I have left, before it was too late to rescue Hyrule and my efforts here had been in vain?

What time was it?

It almost startled me to notice that I no longer had any idea whether it was morning or evening. Seconds could have been minutes, or days could have been hours . . . somehow in the depths of this dungeon, time could slip by so utterly unnoticed that I could pause for what I perceived to be but half a minute, only to discover I had wasted away three hours! Three hours I could have spent outside of this dreadful haunt, if I had spent them searching for the keys to reach and at last defeat the master behind this evil. . . .

And even once I had defeated whatever creature was behind the locked doors, the Master was still waiting for me in a dungeon still further ahead. I still had not won.

It was beginning to seem to me that I would never win.

I ran out into the open, unprotected from the blades knifing through the air carelessly, as though life and death meant nothing. There, in the centre of the room, were the stone figures of two ghosts, each bearing a wide, rough-edged sickle stained crimson in various places. These lifeless statues were not designed to protect the temple from evil; they were designed to do evil, by evil. These endlessly spinning statues could never know their purpose; they could never hear the screams and feel the pain of those whose lives they so cleanly ended. They simply continued to turn and so continued to kill, completely oblivious to everything.

I should like to be a statue. Yes, indeed. . . . Unfeeling, unknowing—a beautiful edifice for people to stare at, turn away from, and forget. If I were a statue, I could stare out upon the thousands, without seeing, without knowing, without feeling . . . without seeing the expectation in their eyes, the hopelessness in the land around, the pleading. Yes, I should indeed love to be a statue!

Hurriedly I cast my gaze about the room for the exit. There were so many doors . . . which one was the one that I needed to be using? I had the key to every door in this blasted dungeon; I simply lacked the knowledge of the locations of those doors. If I could only find that door, I could kill the chief monster behind this madness and be off and out of this temple for good—if only!

I reached for my map. That door was on here somewhere, I knew, signified by a skull. Whoever drew these maps was hardly subtle! If the artist was trying to protect the creatures guarding this edifice, he was failing, but I was hardly in a position to argue. I merely took whatever could help me get out of here alive as quickly as possible.

There . . . in the fourth basement . . . I glanced to my left. There was no door there to take me down, like my map said—just another cranny in the wall with a painting of a twisted smiling face on one side. There was nothing there that was useful to me! Nothing!

Suddenly I groaned. Foolishness! Of course I couldn't see anything useful! In this temple, nothing useful was visible to the naked eye! I lifted the Lens of Truth and glanced back at the wall. Of course. Underneath the face was a hole. Naturally.

Now I had the task ahead of avoiding those blades, but I had a feeling that if my legs would support me, I could jump—or, at the very least, crawl under them. I could even run and keep ahead of them, and if lack of energy forced me to, I could take a rather risky nap and duck down underneath the blades for a while. Risky? Of course it was risky. Should I awaken and forget where I was, I could very easily lose my head. And then, I would die feeling the pang of inconsolable guilt in my last moments alive. . . . Risky? Of course! Should I fall asleep here, one of the black creatures from this hell could very easily find me dozing, and what then would I do? Should I jump up and fight him, I could very easily lose track of the deadly sickles and leap right into my unpleasant demise.

But then, what creature could get past these blades, if I couldn't?

How would dwelling on this help me? The chances of my legs giving out were slim to none . . . but if I didn't run, I'd never have the chance to find out. Frantically I stood up and made a mad dash for the other side of the room, diving down into the hole in the wall as soon as it was reachable. Although I did vaguely feel myself hitting the stone floor roughly, I was oblivious to the pain of the landing, thankfully, and it took me a moment before I realised that I'd made it here safely.

"Link? Are you all right? Link?"

"Navi?" It took me a moment to process that voice. Navi, my fairy. Sent to be my guide and guardian by the Great Deku Tree himself . . . by heaven, how long ago had that been? Seven years?

Seven years!

Navi gave me very little time to think about it. "Are you hurt? You seem to have taken quite a fall there. You well?"

I paused for a moment, contemplating how time indeed had no meaning, before replying. "I'm fine, Navi. And it was a dive, not a fall. But—thank you."

"Excuse me, Sir Hero—you took quite a dive. And aren't you graceful, sprawling like that on the ground . . . you could have fallen through that hole and then alas for Link!" The peppery little fairy was silent for a few seconds before speaking again. "Don't worry me like that."

"I appreciate your concern, Navi, my sweet," I replied with what I hoped was subtle sarcasm. "And I shall try not to arouse your concern. But if you should be less obliged to worry with me in there running around with those blades, then it is no trouble for me to go back in there."

Navi remained silent. I lifted the Lens to my eyes again as I stood up, feeling some of my ability to use the magic it carried drain in the process, and glanced toward the face. There, in front of its hideous grin, was a gaping hole, and on one of the walls to either side of it was a fence. A fence like so many I'd climbed before—a fence I could use to get down.

Praying that this hole was unlike some others I had encountered on my journey and had a bottom, I lowered myself down and started descending. As Navi slipped into my hat silently, I glanced down, half-expecting to see myself crawling down into a trap; but to my surprise, what I had perceived as mere blackness before was actually a solid rock floor. A solid rock floor, only about ten or fifteen feet below me.

Ah, I was in luck!

As soon as my feet touched the floor, I raised the Lens again to make sure there were no more holes. I had only been in this temple for mere hours—or had I?—and already I'd learned to distrust holes . . . especially holes that were so conveniently located. Thankfully, there was nothing ahead of me that I could not already see, so I lowered the purple instrument that had saved my life more than twice to preserve my strength. Taking a step forward, I looked ahead, to my right . . . and then to my left.

Immediately I hurried over toward the spectacle that met my eyes. Logically I doubted them. But the Eye of Truth had shown me nothing except what I had already seen—so was there, perhaps, something even the legendary Eye of Truth couldn't show me?

For ahead of me, there was a break in the stone floor spanning about fifty feet or so. Looking down into that break, I could see nothing but blackness—a neverending, haunting darkness I had seen before in so many places around this temple.

And there, floating in that darkness, was a sailboat.

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Hey, look, a boat. And Stalfos in the next chapter! Thank you, reviewers, for your reviews . . . and for those of you who haven't, read Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time by Arxane. (What an original title!) It's here on FF.N, and it's pretty good—Ocarina of Time with a twist. Anyway. Hope you liked this chapter. Suggestions, comments, and criticism welcome. Compliment at your own risk. *grin*